Lost Ark launches in just one week's time, on Feb. 11 (or Feb. 8 if you have early access), and expectations are high for the worldwide release of Smilegate's MMORPG. If you are a first-timer, however, the game's sizes and plethora of activities can be confusing, as in any MMORPG.

Therefore, here's Inven Global's guide to 10 things you need to know on day 1 as you start playing Lost Ark.

1. Don’t waste time clearing trash mobs in the open world

The vast majority of the experience that you gain is from completing main story quests, not by killing mobs. Killing random trash mobs that populate the open world may be a lot of fun because of how satisfying the combat feels, but you won’t actually be receiving much from doing so. You’ll be killing a lot of trash mobs anyway as a requirement for most quests and dungeons, so don’t worry about getting “bored” if you just want to kill things.

You should focus on completing your quests first and foremost, as they will almost always lead you in the direction of things to kill. You won’t have any trouble enjoying the combat in this game, I promise.

2. You can change your skill build freely at any time

Unlike some MMORPG’s, you aren’t permanently locked into a skill build. You’re allowed to freely swap skills, skill points, runes, and tripod selections at any time (as long as you’re out of combat and those skills are off cooldown). This is incredibly useful during the leveling process, as some skills have tripods that deal bonus damage to trash mobs, tripods that grant additional damage to boss enemies, or tripods that increase mobility, which are all situationally useful on their own. You don’t need to stress about what skills you want to invest in either, if you suddenly realize you don’t actually like the specific skill you’ve put a lot of skill points into, you can just un-allocate them and put them towards another skill.

3. Use a pet

Pets are by far the biggest quality of life system in Lost Ark. You’ll get your first pet through a quest in Prideholme City. Pets will automatically loot all nearby items near you and you should have a pet for solely this reason if nothing else. In addition, with a Crystalline Aura active, pets will also allow you to repair your items, access your storage, access your mail, access the auction house, and give you access to secondary pet inventory.

4. Use your mounts

Mounts are the best way to travel in Lost Ark. You’ll get your first mount and access to the mounting system through a quest at Loghill Outpost. Use this mount system liberally: it will save a ton of time getting from point A to point B. While it may seem as if you’re not actually going much faster than walking and using mobility skills, you will be. Some mounts even have special movement abilities on their spacebar that will greatly affect the speed at which they travel. Mounting in Lost Ark to travel is an extreme time saver and you shouldn’t ever stop mounting up to travel across zones if you’re out of combat for a prolonged period.

5. Join a guild!

Joining a guild is extremely important in Lost Ark, as there are many benefits to being in one. You’ll be introduced to guilds through a Guide Quest in Luterra Castle. The reward for joining and participating in guild activities are Silmael Crystals, which can be used to purchase a variety of items such as upgrade materials, upgrade enhancement materials, ticket containers, silver containers, tripod powders, and experience potions. These are relatively easy to acquire because guild activities typically reward you for playing the game normally. There is no additional work, just claim your free stuff for doing what you were going to be doing anyway.

6. Keep an eye on the type of potions you are using

In Lost Ark, there are two types of potions. The standard Healing Potions recover a flat amount of health every second, and the HP potions recover a percentage of your health instantly. The former are very cheap and plentiful throughout the leveling process, while the latter are significantly more costly and should not be used during leveling at all. This is because the HP potions are the only potions that are available to use in Raids, and can only be obtained from consumable boxes, crafted, or bought off the auction house.

Shining Elemental HP Potions (Which restore 60% HP) are especially costly and will be near mandatory in the hardest content. This is an especially important tip as founders packs will give you both Healing Potions and HP potions throughout your leveling process, so make sure to equip the right ones!

7. Don’t ignore Trade Skills and your Stronghold

Trade Skills in Lost Ark are a very easy way to make and save gold. You will unlock a Guide Quest that introduces Trade Skills in Lakebar Village, so I’d recommend you start using Trade Skills at this time. These trade skills include Mining, Fishing, Logging, Hunting, Excavating, and Foraging, which allow you to gather raw materials which can be used to craft items such as the aforementioned HP potions, in addition to other items such as bombs and ship parts. You can craft these items in your Stronghold, but the type and tier of items increase with your stronghold research level. Make sure you’re making adequate use of your stronghold, it can save you a lot of money in the long run!

Also, if you see a fellow player cutting down a tree, walk up and help them. You’ll cut down the tree in half the time and you’ll both get resources.

8. Pay attention to Jewelry

Unlike typical MMORPG’s, key stats in Lost Ark mainly come from your jewelry, not your armor or weapons. This means that having well-rolled jewelry is crucial to your success in Lost Ark, and is where the majority of your in-game gold will be allocated towards. Not only do crucial secondary stats like Crit, Swiftness, and Specialization only roll on jewelry, but jewelry is one of your main sources of Engravings. It is crucial to pay attention to your jewelry, as they will be mandatory pieces for any build that you plan on playing.

In addition, even if you might not find use from jewelry you pick up from Guardian Raids or Chaos Dungeons, someone else might! You can make a lot of gold selling jewelry with desirable stats and engravings on the auction house.

9. Keep an eye on your Engravings

Engravings are passive buffs to your character that are incredibly important in the endgame of Lost Ark. Most engravings usually act as multiplicative increases to your character’s damage or utility. Class Engravings, which are exclusive to each class, can fundamentally change how your character plays as soon as you activate them.

However, there are Engravings that also provide a negative effect to your character, so you want to make sure you minimize the amount of negative Engravings while maximizing the positive ones. Engravings will activate at different levels based on how many points of that Engraving your character has allocated. If you have at least 5 points of a specific Engraving, it will activate at level 1. If you have at least 10 points of a specific Engraving, it will activate at level 2. If you have at least 15 points of a specific Engraving, it will activate at level 3.

Standard Engraving points can be found on ability stones, jewelry, and engraving seal books. Class Engraving points can only be found on jewelry and engraving seal books.

10. Use Signal Flares during Guardian Raids

An important consumable that you need to be aware of are Signal Flares. Signal Flares will simply show you where the Guardian is on the map when they are used.

While this might not seem that important at first glance, Guardian Raids are timed. In some of the harder Guardian Raids, you will need every single second you can get in order to take them down. Saving time that would have normally been spent finding the Guardian in the first place will give you more time to DPS, and thus give a better chance of killing it. Typical Signal Flare etiquette is that party member #1 will use the first Signal Flare. After the boss moves, party member #2 will then use the next Signal Flare and so on.

Please use Signal Flares. Save yourself some valuable time and frustration.